Wikis and Pedias and Obsessions, Oh My!

Somehow or other, I stumbled across the existence of Scifipedia, an SF-oriented wiki developed by SciFi.com. Of course, I looked to see if they had a good section about authors, and specifically about me. The answer: authors, yes; me, no. So I set about to remedy the situation. You wouldn’t believe how long it can take to compose a simple encyclopedia article about yourself, especially when most of the information already exists in various documents readily at hand. Nevertheless, I got it done, and you can read all about me and my stuff at Scifipedia | Literature | Authors.

Well, one thing leads to another, and soon I was checking to make sure that various articles about Battlestar Galactica included information about the novels. (They didn’t; I fixed that.) And that led to the discovery of Battlestarwiki, and a search to see if the books were properly referenced there. At first, the answer seemed to be no. A search for novels didn’t lead to much, but eventually I found an article titled “List of Books,” which probably isn’t the best title for search purposes, but never mind. That led to the discovery of a detailed page about my BSG novel, which is truly mind-boggling in its excruciating attention to detail. Some of their speculations are interesting and fun, and some lead me to scratch my head. I’m torn between awe at the energy and intelligence devoted to this, and wanting to say, “Get a—!” But no, no, that’s the last thing I would say to fans! Amazing, truly amazing what these people have pulled together.

Kitty

Wow, that’s a lot of trivia about your novel on their page! So do you think that Cally “looks like a Jane”? (For some reason I never pictured her as having a first name, I always thought of Cally as both a first and last name.)

Well, yes, I *did* think Cally looked like a Jane. Everyone else on the hangar crew was referred to by their last names, so there was no reason to think otherwise for her. She was one of a bunch of crew members of whom I asked the producers, “What are their first names?” The answer was, “We don’t really know. Go ahead and make up names if you want.” I did so with some hesitation, but ran all my choices past them–including Natasi, for Caprica Six. They were silent, so I went with it.